The deal follows the company's earlier effort to raise money by borrowing on its new building—but that was a problem because any lender would have the Times itself as a tenant and the Times is less and less creditworthy. The next notion was to sell its interest in the Boston Red Sox, but the Times holds only a minority stake in the team (i.e. it's got no power) which, ultimately, is not worth much more than the price of good seats.

Hence, the Times was forced to turn to Slim—who already owns a big chunk of Times stock and who's made his gargantuan fortune ($60 billion) in the internecine politics of Mexico, where the government granted him a mighty monopoly—and forced to pay him 14% interest for his money. This is more than $30 million a year—more than the New York Times Co., after walloping losses at its subsidiaries, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, and assorted other papers (the Times itself actually turns a little profit), makes.